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ALCHEMY TAKES ON NEW LUSTER Scholars strive to meld alchemy into the traditional scientific narrative
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HE WORD "ALCHEMIST" TYPI-
cally conjures an image of a dank, medieval laboratory with a bearded initiate pursuing the futile ambition to convert lead into gold. But not to those at the International Conference on the History of Alchemy & Chymistry, which took place on July 19-22 at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia. To the scholars there who shared their latest historical discoveries about alchemy and early chemistry, that stereotype ought to fade away, like a disproved scientific theory. Until recently, historians of alchemy had to apologize for their intellectual pursuits, commiserated Johns Hopkins University historian of science Lawrence M. Principe. The last major international gathering of historians of alchemy and early chemistry was in Groningen, the Netherlands, 17 years ago. Since then, the field "has become mainstream," Principe proclaimed to the 100 conferees who had gathered from four continents. Indiana University historian of science William R. Newman lamented that the field is still dogged by earlier scholars who painted alchemy as "an obscurantist impediment to scientific progress." But the traditional demarcation between prescientific alchemy and modern science is now indefensible, he said. Consider the mid-17th-century American alchemist George Starkey, who, Newman and Principe find, pivotally influenced the rigorous laboratory practices and chemical theorizing of the early English chemist Robert Boyle. At the meeting, Newman outWWW.CEN-0NLINE.ORG
lined his re-analysis of the Isaac Newton manuscript designated Dibner 1031B. Written backward and upside down on two manuscript pages are previously untranslated Latin passages. These amount to a listlike account of Newton's elaboration of the thenpopular "sal nitrum theory of metallic generation," in which metals form in the earth via interactions between rising sulfurous vapors and downward-flowing, salty, vitriolic waters. In the final lines of the Latin text, Newman noted, Isaac Newton hints of an expansive theory in which metal-generating vapors "wander all over the earth and bestow life on animals and vegetables."These lines provide rare clues to Newton's pursuit of a "theory of everything" and suggest why
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this icon of the scientific revolution spent his last three decades pursuing alchemical investigations, Newman said. Others at the meeting revealed alchemists, sometimes pervasive presence in the courts of kings, the "secrets" behind the materials in coveted Hessian crucibles that could stand up to the demanding conditions ofboth the alchemists, and mining assayed laboratories, and the meanings of alchemists' allegorical and metaphoric words and images. What if the traditional astronomy- and physicscentric narrative ofthe early scientific revolution were rewritten to include "chymistry," a term introduced a decade ago to emphasize the continuity of alchemy and early chemistry? With that transmutation of the story of science's ascent on their to-do lists, an energized group of chymistry scholars dispersed onJuly 22.—IVAN AMATO
SECRET SEEKER "The Alchemist in His Workshop" was painted by David Teniersinthe 17th century.
«? EASY? POUR VESSELS COURT^ Hessian crucibles were best at taking the heat of alchemists' fires.
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University Labs Are Found NoncompUant With Security Rules for Bioterror Agents
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everal university laboratories working with some of the deadliest biological agents are not complying fully with regulations to safeguard these so-called select agents from accidental release or intentional theft. The Department of Health & Human Services Office of Inspector General reviewed the compliance of 15 labs with select-agent security regulations for the 12 months beginning in November 2003. Assistant IG Joseph J. Green would not tell C&EN how these 15 labs were selected from the pool of 96 labs working with such select agents as the anthrax bacteria and botulinum neurotoxins. Eleven of the 15 unnamed labs were out of compliance with regulations in at least one of five areas. Eight of the 11 labs, for example, had weak inventory and/or access records. Six labs had weak access controls, including procedures for
access to select-agent areas, and/or weak security plans. Three of the 11 labs had poor emergency response plans, the IG reports. Such plans are critical because "most of the labs working with select agents are located in urban areas," says Edward Hammond, director of the U.S. Office of the Sunshine Project, a bioweapons watchdog group. Overall, five of the 15 labs studied were not in compliance in three areas, and one lab complied with none of the regulations. There is no indication in the IG report that any of these labs were sanctioned. Out-of-compliant labs should, "at a minimum," have their federal support withdrawn or lose "eligibility for future federal support," says Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard H. Ebright, who monitors select-agent studies.—LOIS EMBER C & E N / J U L Y 3 1 , 2006
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